What does it take to ensure an effective competency program? Acutecaretesting.org asked three point-of-care coordinators (POCC) with solid programs what makes their competencies work. Their input resulted in a list of 12 key recommendations.

Is it a good idea to rely on vendors to help develop training materials for point-of-care testing staff? According to the lab group responsible for point-of-care (POC) testing at the Malmö University Hospital in Sweden, vendor cooperation can help you achieve a better result, faster. However, the better prepared you ...

Blood gas analysis at the point of care plays an important role during and after an open-heart surgery. acutecaretesting.org recently talked to Prof. Knut Kleesiek, MD, Director of the Institute for Laboratory and Transfusion Medicine of the Heart and Diabetes Center North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, to find out more ...

Apgar scores and umbilical artery pH have traditionally been used as objective measures of neonatal asphyxia. According to the literature, the practice of cord gas analysis varies greatly both between and within countries - whether analysis is performed, whether it is routine at all births and why it is performed...

When it comes to acid base, there is no getting around the name of Ole Siggaard-Andersen (OSA). acutecaretesting.org talks to the world-renowned Danish professor, who has become a legend in the field of blood gas.

That is the question the Hvidovre Hospital had to ask itself in May 2003, when the Danish National Board of Health and the Copenhagen Hospital Corporation appointed it to be one of the country's three key sites for receiving and treating SARS patients. Once appointed, the hospital began a painstaking process of...

Danish neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are known throughout the world for practicing minimal handling. Because it is non-invasive, transcutaneous monitoring of pO₂ and pCO₂ plays an important role in this setup. acutecaretesting.org has interviewed Professor Gorm Greisen, MD, Dr. Med. Sci., and Head of the...

According to the Hvidovre Hospital, standardizing is a must if POCT is to run optimally. In the first article of the series "POCT setups for blood gas", acutecaretesting.org interviews the Danish hospital on how they have successfully implemented POCT.

Preparing for an accreditation inspection is often synonymous with carts full of paper. For some labs, though, the paper hassle associated with accreditation is now history. These labs are letting their data management systems do all the work.

How do small labs cope with the demands of modern quality assurance? In this interview, Ruth Lock, head of the laboratory of the Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Dept. of the Copenhagen County Hospital in Glostrup, Denmark, tells how her lab keeps up with demands with the help of training and quality control.